I read an interesting article at BCC today by Brad Masters. He gives his views (within the context of a Sunday School New Testament style lesson) as to why Mormons that lose their faith also seem to lose their faith in Jesus Christ.
A few thoughts. First, I suspect he’s right that Mormons tend to lose their faith in Jesus Christ when they lose their faith in Mormonism, but do we actually have any statistics to back this assumption up?
Second, I can totally see why the two are so strong connected. It’s like a non-Mormon Christian losing their faith in Christianity but not losing their faith in Moses. When we believe in a religious worldview, I would think we do not normally separate out pieces of it like this.
Nick Literski on Mormon Matters (did I spell the name right?) used to say that the LDS Church did a great job of helping its members see that other Christian religions had less truth then them. So he felt that once someone lost their faith in Mormonism (which Nick did) it only made sense to not bother with other Christian religions.
Still, if Jesus Christ is quite literally God the Son, then I think Brad’s question seems pertinent. Moses is not a Jesus Christ, for example.
One other thought from BCC today. They had a link to this article about a “coming crackdown” on Mormon liberals. It’s only a link to an article, not a post, so its outside my current reading of BCC. And I am not to criticize them at this time, so I will not.
Instead, here is what the burning question in my mind is: do bloggers and readers of BCC identify with John Dehlin? Does John Dehlin’s presumed excommunication cause members of BCC to feel the sort of fear this article claims they do?
My friend, John C, who used to be a blogger at BCC, didn’t seem to identify with John Dehlin much at all. So I’m curious how that community tends to look at something like this. To what degree is this article accurate of their community? To what degree is it totally off the mark?